🚀 go-pugleaf

 See:-

http://www.gog.com/promo/adventures_weekend_promo_050713

All completely DRM-free, updated for modern Windows OS, 

About half come with both Windows and  (Intel) Mac installers --- look
for the "apple" symbol next to the game's  "cover-picture" on the
above page.

John Lewis

On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 22:15:15 +0400, John Lewis <john.dsl@frontier.com> wrote:

>  See:-
>http://www.gog.com/promo/adventures_weekend_promo_050713
>All completely DRM-free, updated for modern Windows OS,
>

With Steam Summer Sale coming (most probably) next week
no need to overpay now really ;)


-- 
Andrew Rybenkov

On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 23:38:52 +0400, "Andrew Rybenkov"
<arybenkov@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 22:15:15 +0400, John Lewis <john.dsl@frontier.com> wrote:
>
>>  See:-
>>http://www.gog.com/promo/adventures_weekend_promo_050713
>>All completely DRM-free, updated for modern Windows OS,
>>
>
>With Steam Summer Sale coming (most probably) next week
>no need to overpay now really ;)
>
>

Above weekend promo average sale price $2.5, yeah..sure....indeed..
grossly overpaying for completely DRM-free classics updated for modern
OS....with all documentation included in the download.

Enjoy Steaming along dragging the Valve-DRM ball 'n chain...

John Lewis

>-- 
>Andrew Rybenkov

On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 20:03:59 GMT, john.dsl@frontier.com (John Lewis)
wrote:

>On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 23:38:52 +0400, "Andrew Rybenkov"
><arybenkov@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 22:15:15 +0400, John Lewis <john.dsl@frontier.com> wrote:
>>
>>>  See:-
>>>http://www.gog.com/promo/adventures_weekend_promo_050713
>>>All completely DRM-free, updated for modern Windows OS,
>>>
>>
>>With Steam Summer Sale coming (most probably) next week
>>no need to overpay now really ;)
>>
>>
>
>Above weekend promo average sale price $2.5, yeah..sure....indeed..

Correction: $3.15 average, most @$2.39, a few @$3.99, one @$7.99

>grossly overpaying for completely DRM-free classics updated for modern
>OS....with all documentation included in the download.
>
>Enjoy Steaming along dragging the Valve-DRM ball 'n chain...
>
>John Lewis
>
>>-- 
>>Andrew Rybenkov
>

On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 00:03:59 +0400, John Lewis <john.dsl@frontier.com> wrote:

> updated for modern
> OS

do you believe this crap yourself?

No kidding, do you believe they have sources for all games they sell,
or maybe they disassembly .com/.exe's?

How without reprogramming you can modify a program to run on "modern systems"
(if it did not run initially)?


-- 
Andrew Rybenkov

On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 00:24:37 +0400, "Andrew Rybenkov"
<arybenkov@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 00:03:59 +0400, John Lewis <john.dsl@frontier.com> wrote:
>
>> updated for modern
>> OS
>
>do you believe this crap yourself?
>
>No kidding, do you believe they have sources for all games they sell,
>or maybe they disassembly .com/.exe's?
>
>How without reprogramming you can modify a program to run on "modern systems"
>(if it did not run initially)?

He didn't say recompiled for modern OS.  There can be things like
minor tweaks to config files or the installation routine (which I
believe in at least some cases, GOG does provide their own installer)
that make the difference between running on a modern OS versus
crashing on attempted run.

Although I feel the need to point out truths in things regardless of
other factors, I probably shouldn't defend him because he still
apparently is unable to cognitively discern between Steam
authentication and DRM, which is well into mongoloid territory, even
though fact has been clearly illustrated to him on more than one
occasion.  So if you really want to taunt the unfortunate, that would
be better ammo for you to start with.

On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 00:24:37 +0400, "Andrew Rybenkov"
<arybenkov@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 00:03:59 +0400, John Lewis <john.dsl@frontier.com> wrote:
>
>> updated for modern
>> OS
>
>do you believe this crap yourself?
>
>No kidding, do you believe they have sources for all games they sell,
>or maybe they disassembly .com/.exe's?
>
>How without reprogramming you can modify a program to run on "modern systems"
>(if it did not run initially)?
>

Access to source-code, use DOSBox and/or hand-modify the .exes and/or
.dlls?  Who cares?.... as long as the game run flawlessly and the
presence of the enabler is completely buried in the GOG-installer,
which it is...  And, remember, GOG requires a DRM-free image, so 
they may well have to go in and reverse-engineer game executables or
.dlls from developers long since vanished.

You may not know, but GOG.com is an offshoot of CDProjekt Red, the
Witcher developer, so I'm sure GOG has access to some pretty competent
game programmers if needed. Some games that require more than DOSbox
or "Setting to XP/98/whatever mode" have been fixed by GOG.  Quantic
Dreams  classic "Omikron" (originally releaed for Win98/ME) in its
original CD form had sluggish UI and froze up completely on the Map
screen under WinXP also  refused to run on Win7, The GOG release runs
just fine in XP and Win7-64 on the latest hardware..

Do you have some grudge against GOG ??

I personally have acquired pretty large collections of both Steam- and
GOG- sourced games, but for games available on both, will always
choose GOG when the price becomes "right". 

For instance, "Tales of Monkey Island Complete" went in the GOG Summer
Sale (just ended) for $5.24, (totally DRM-free, of course); the price
on Steam was $34.99.

John Lewis


>
>-- 
>Andrew Rybenkov

On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 00:24:37 +0400, "Andrew Rybenkov"
<arybenkov@gmail.com> wrote:

>do you believe this crap yourself?
>
>No kidding, do you believe they have sources for all games they sell,
>or maybe they disassembly .com/.exe's?
>
>How without reprogramming you can modify a program to run on "modern systems"
>(if it did not run initially)?

It isn't crap. John Lewis is correct.

I can't get Might and Magic VII to run properly on my Vista computer.
The GOG version of the same game just works. I don't know what they
did and I don't care. They can have my $5.99 for a copy of the game
that installs and runs trouble free.

Andrew Rybenkov <arybenkov@gmail.com> wrote:
>No kidding, do you believe they have sources for all games they sell,
>or maybe they disassembly .com/.exe's?
>
>How without reprogramming you can modify a program to run on "modern systems"
>(if it did not run initially)?

GOG.com does do a fair bit of work themselves to get old games working on
modern systems.  Whether that's wraping an old MS-DOS game in DOSBox,
applying official or unofficial patches, or modifying the program
themselves, the games are rarely distributed unmodified from their
original releases.

Using Mike S's Might and Magic VII as an example, the GOG.com version
streams the background music from MP3s on the harddisk.  The original
played its background music directly from the CD-ROM as normal audio
CD tracks.  From the looks of things GOG.com created this modification
themselves, but it could be based on some third party's work.  Either way,
if GOG.com hadn't applied it then the game likely wouldn't work a large
number of modern systems, many which don't have optical drives any more
let alone audio cables connecting the drives to their sound cards.

Steam on the other hand seems to leave this all to the publisher.
Which is a reasonable enough policy, but a lot of of publishers aren't
going to bother.  If GOG.com hadn't taken on it on themselves to do
this work for many of their games then a lot of them simply wouldn't be
available to buy and download from any source.

As your early comment about the prices during GOG.com's Summer sale, I
doubt you'll find a single game they had on sale for a lower price during
Steam's Summer sale.  That is assuming Valve even has one this year.
They seem to be shying away from seasonal sales in preference for daily
and weekly deals.

					Ross Ridge


-- 
 l/  //	  Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo]  rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/  http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/ 
 db  //	  

On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 22:33:10 -0400, Ross Ridge
<rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:

>Andrew Rybenkov <arybenkov@gmail.com> wrote:
>>No kidding, do you believe they have sources for all games they sell,
>>or maybe they disassembly .com/.exe's?
>>
>>How without reprogramming you can modify a program to run on "modern systems"
>>(if it did not run initially)?
>
>GOG.com does do a fair bit of work themselves to get old games working on
>modern systems.  Whether that's wraping an old MS-DOS game in DOSBox,
>applying official or unofficial patches, or modifying the program
>themselves, the games are rarely distributed unmodified from their
>original releases.
>
>Using Mike S's Might and Magic VII as an example, the GOG.com version
>streams the background music from MP3s on the harddisk.  The original
>played its background music directly from the CD-ROM as normal audio
>CD tracks.  From the looks of things GOG.com created this modification
>themselves, but it could be based on some third party's work.  Either way,
>if GOG.com hadn't applied it then the game likely wouldn't work a large
>number of modern systems, many which don't have optical drives any more
>let alone audio cables connecting the drives to their sound cards.
>
>Steam on the other hand seems to leave this all to the publisher.
>Which is a reasonable enough policy, but a lot of of publishers aren't
>going to bother. 

The original publisher or the original developer or both may no longer
be associated with a game's IP. Case in point, System Shock 2. 

>>From the SS2 Wiki:-

At GOG.com, a digital distribution website that sells popular older
titles, System Shock 2 was the game most requested to be added to the
catalog, but they were unable to do so until February 2013 as the
rights to the title were caught in complications between Electronic
Arts and Meadowbrook Insurance Group (a subsidiary of Star Insurance
Company), the entity that acquired the assets of Looking Glass Studios
on their closure, though according to a lawyer for Star Insurance,
they themselves have since acquired the lingering intellectual
property rights from EA. Stephen Kick of Night Dive Studios, seeking
to bring the game to modern systems, started negotiations with the
rights holders in October 2012, and was able to secure the rights to
update and release the game for modern systems. Kick worked with
GOG.com for a timed-exclusive release on the site; the title was later
available on Steam on May 10, 2013. This version, considered by
GOG.com to be a "collector's edition", includes updates to the
original game to make it work on modern systems while still allowing
user-made modifications to be applied, and contains additional
material such as the game's soundtrack, maps of the Von Braun, and the
original pitch document for the game. The update rights also allowed a
Mac OS X version of System Shock 2 to be subsequently released on June
18, 2013 through GOG.com. customer-requests, 

> If GOG.com hadn't taken on it on themselves to do
>this work for many of their games then a lot of them simply wouldn't be
>available to buy and download from any source.
>

INDEED

>
>As your early comment about the prices during GOG.com's Summer sale, I
>doubt you'll find a single game they had on sale for a lower price during
>Steam's Summer sale.  That is assuming Valve even has one this year.
>They seem to be shying away from seasonal sales in preference for daily
>and weekly deals.
>

A disappointing trend at Valve/Steam. However, there are alternates.
Amazon.com currently has Suimmer Sale Deals (June 30- July 14) on PC
and Mac Digital Downloads (some are just Steam-keys).

Ross,  thanks for your clarity on GOG's genuine "added-value"
activities. 

I personally have a large collection of classic PC games going back to
~ 1990. GOG has enabled me to gradually 'pension off' the original
CDs. I also have a machine that runs Win98SE/ME (at 3GHz) with both
3dfx and Geforce hardware installed that I have preserved to run some
of the older titles.  Thanks to GOG, this machine is finally getting
less and less use.

John Lewis

>					Ross Ridge
>
>

On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 22:01:50 GMT, john...@frontier.com (John Lewis)
wrote:

>On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 00:24:37 +0400, "Andrew Rybenkov"
><aryb...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 00:03:59 +0400, John Lewis <john...@frontier.com> wrote:
>>
>>> updated for modern
>>> OS
>>
>>do you believe this crap yourself?
>>
>>No kidding, do you believe they have sources for all games they sell,
>>or maybe they disassembly .com/.exe's?
>>
>>How without reprogramming you can modify a program to run on "modern systems"
>>(if it did not run initially)?
>>
>
>Access to source-code, use DOSBox and/or hand-modify the .exes and/or
>.dlls?  Who cares?.... as long as the game run flawlessly and the
>presence of the enabler is completely buried in the GOG-installer,
>which it is...  And, remember, GOG requires a DRM-free image, so 
>they may well have to go in and reverse-engineer game executables or
>dlls from developers long since vanished.
>
>You may not know, but GOG.com is an offshoot of CDProjekt Red, the
>Witcher developer, so I'm sure GOG has access to some pretty competent
>game programmers if needed. Some games that require more than DOSbox
>or "Setting to XP/98/whatever mode" have been fixed by GOG.  Quantic
>Dreams  classic "Omikron" (originally releaed for Win98/ME) in its
>original CD form had sluggish UI and froze up completely on the Map
>screen under WinXP also  refused to run on Win7, The GOG release runs
>just fine in XP and Win7-64 on the latest hardware..

FWIW, typically the type of skills required to get older software
working on updated OS would not involve anything like disassembling
.exes or some other things that might have been fantasized about in
this thread.  Furthermore, that sort of "development" is much more
along the lines of all-out hacking, a completely different type of
development from the guys that develop modern games.  It's rarely a
case of whether or not a developer "is good" or not anymore, it's a
matter of what are that particular developers specialities, and how
does his skillset match the tasks ahead of him? 

Anyway most of the success stories from Steam and GOG repackaged games
is simply a matter of re-working the installation.  This can typically
be done by a QA tech, or in more elaborate shops they will have a
dedicated configuration manager / build guy type of person (or persons
on larger projects) that is in charge of making sure the installation
provides broad coverage of typical modern OSes.

If there was really a problem in an .exe of a game that cannot be
overcome by relatively simple configuration changes, you most likely
won't see that game ever appear on GOG, Steam etc.

That would be rare though, with things like DOSbox.  Not to mention
Windows itself has a pretty amazing level of backward compatibility,
since Windows 8 will in some cases run DOS shit from the 80s.  No
other operating system on the planet comes close to that.

john.dsl@frontier.com (John Lewis) looked up from reading the entrails
of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:

<ss2>
>available on Steam on May 10, 2013. This version, considered by
>GOG.com to be a "collector's edition", includes updates to the
>original game to make it work on modern systems while still allowing

So exactly what do they call a "modern system"

I still play this game occasionally and have never had a problem with it
- I do NOT have this "updated" GOG.com version, but the original
re-release from EA Classics from Summer 2000.

Despite being designed for a 200MHz Pentium it runs just fine on a
3.2GHz Quad core Phenom 2.

Of course I don't have ATi Video hardware and I could see that maybe
making a difference since they apparently drop support for old games
from their drivers all the time.

Xocyll

On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 08:53:47 -0400, Xocyll <Xocyll@kingston.net>
wrote:

>I still play this game occasionally and have never had a problem with it
>- I do NOT have this "updated" GOG.com version, but the original
>re-release from EA Classics from Summer 2000.
>
>Despite being designed for a 200MHz Pentium it runs just fine on a
>3.2GHz Quad core Phenom 2.
>
>Of course I don't have ATi Video hardware and I could see that maybe
>making a difference since they apparently drop support for old games
>from their drivers all the time.
>
>Xocyll

You can run it with all video working? I can't.

You can run it without having to disable all but one of your CPU
cores? I can't.

I'm guessing the GOG version works without these issues.

Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com> looked up from reading the entrails of the
porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 08:53:47 -0400, Xocyll <Xocyll@kingston.net>
>wrote:
>
>>I still play this game occasionally and have never had a problem with it
>>- I do NOT have this "updated" GOG.com version, but the original
>>re-release from EA Classics from Summer 2000.
>>
>>Despite being designed for a 200MHz Pentium it runs just fine on a
>>3.2GHz Quad core Phenom 2.
>>
>>Of course I don't have ATi Video hardware and I could see that maybe
>>making a difference since they apparently drop support for old games
>>from their drivers all the time.
>>
>>Xocyll
>
>You can run it with all video working? I can't.

Yep it runs just like it did under Win9x - no issues at all.

What video card type do you have  nVidia or ATi?

>You can run it without having to disable all but one of your CPU
>cores? I can't.

I've never disabled cores for any game.

>I'm guessing the GOG version works without these issues.

Xocyll

On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 13:44:31 -0400, Xocyll <Xocyll@kingston.net>
wrote:

>What video card type do you have  nVidia or ATi?

Nvidia. Though I don't think the issue is video card related. Probably
has more to do with codecs then anything. I never tried too hard to
fix it. I've seen the videos enough times already and I could see them
as often as I wished to on youtube anyway.

>I've never disabled cores for any game.

Consider yourself lucky. I never had to until System Shock 2 came
along. You can turn off the extra cores but there is a patch that does
it for you automatically. I think Thief has one as well. I needed this
patch or the game would just keep locking up.

Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com> looked up from reading the entrails of the
porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 13:44:31 -0400, Xocyll <Xocyll@kingston.net>
>wrote:
>
>>What video card type do you have  nVidia or ATi?
>
>Nvidia. Though I don't think the issue is video card related. Probably
>has more to do with codecs then anything. I never tried too hard to
>fix it. I've seen the videos enough times already and I could see them
>as often as I wished to on youtube anyway.
>
>>I've never disabled cores for any game.
>
>Consider yourself lucky. I never had to until System Shock 2 came
>along. You can turn off the extra cores but there is a patch that does
>it for you automatically. I think Thief has one as well. I needed this
>patch or the game would just keep locking up.

Ah, maybe things work for me since my cores tend to be in use all the
time running BOINC and maybe SS2 isn't getting affected by them due to
that or something.

I have to shut down BOINC for Skyrim and/or for video editing of large
textures since it slows things down considerably, but I usually leave it
running - certainly for older games it has almost no effect on gameplay.

Xocyll

On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 02:01:50 +0400, John Lewis <john...@frontier.com> wrote:

> Do you have some grudge against GOG ??

I do. Exactly because

> You may not know, but GOG.com is an offshoot of CDProjekt Red

I know it.

1. Some Polish guy at rpgcodex told that one of cofounders of CDProjekt
made his initial fortune by selling pirated games in 90s.
I don't have the link (though if someone really cares he can search the site
for the name and info). I have no reason not to believe that guy.

2. Now this CDProjekt again sell the games as it seems legally.
Well, maybe de jure it IS legally but morally it is wrong from all sides.
With time most old games became de facto abandonware, public domain.
Peoples downloaded games, found solutions, built utilties to play old games
on "modern systems". Obscure owners did not care. Everybody was happy.

Now appears a shady company that began to sell the games using community's
solutions, efforts. Wow! God blessed us! Really?

Consider: there was a landlord who had an orchard. Later he moved to some other
place. Local folks began to visit the orchard, they even built ladders
to reach tall trees. Landlord did not care, he just did not want to sell
the land. Heck with the orchard. Then out of nothing appears a sleazeball,
what call the owner, and tells he can make money of the orchard.
Owner answers whatever. Now sleazeball takes a seat in orchard and
tells everybody you should pay me. And me, being so kind person, permit you
to use those ladders for free. (One of ladders has name - DosBox ;)

That is the lump on my shoulder.

-- 
Andrew Rybenkov

On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 10:34:59 +0400, Rin Stowleigh <rstowleigh@gmail.com> wrote:

> If there was really a problem in an .exe of a game that cannot be
> overcome by relatively simple configuration changes, you most likely
> won't see that game ever appear on GOG, Steam etc.

We will see whatever that mighty GOG will do with original Fallout.
The game conflicts with desktop windows manager of Windows. In XP,Vista/W7
you can turn it off in exe's compatibility options ("desktop composition").
W8 does not let to turn DWM off anymore.

Some guy published a way to unload DWM (and Explorer along with it).
So theoretically it is possible to run Fallout on W8, but it's tricky.


-- 
Andrew Rybenkov

Andrew Rybenkov <arybenkov@gmail.com> wrote:
>1. Some Polish guy at rpgcodex told that one of cofounders of CDProjekt
>made his initial fortune by selling pirated games in 90s.
>I don't have the link (though if someone really cares he can search the site
>for the name and info). I have no reason not to believe that guy.

Or maybe they licenced the games, translated them into Polish and made
a ton of money that way.  I heard that somewhere on the Internet, and I
have no reason to not believe it.  You'll have to google it for yourself
'cause I'm too lazy post a link.

>2. Now this CDProjekt again sell the games as it seems legally.
>Well, maybe de jure it IS legally but morally it is wrong from all sides.
>With time most old games became de facto abandonware, public domain.
>Peoples downloaded games, found solutions, built utilties to play old games
>on "modern systems". Obscure owners did not care. Everybody was happy.
>
>Now appears a shady company that began to sell the games using community's
>solutions, efforts. Wow! God blessed us! Really?

I don't see what's morally wrong with that.  GOG.com asked me for
permission when they wanted to use a patch I created with a game they
were planning on releasing.  Most people who create these patches,
modifications and workarounds are happy to see them used to make old
games commercially available again.  DOSBox in particular is proud that
GOG is using their emulator.

Oh, and your 8 step solution to getting CD audio to work with old games
on modern computers is something very few people would even attempt,
let alone be able to complete successfully.  I can't believe you
honestly suggested that it makes the GOG version of Might and Magic
VII unnecessary.

					Ross Ridge

-- 
 l/  //	  Ross Ridge -- The Great HTMU
[oo][oo]  rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca
-()-/()/  http://www.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~rridge/ 
 db  //	  

"Andrew Rybenkov" <arybenkov@gmail.com> looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs
say:

>On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 02:01:50 +0400, John Lewis <john.dsl@frontier.com> wrote:
>
>> Do you have some grudge against GOG ??
>
>I do. Exactly because
>
>> You may not know, but GOG.com is an offshoot of CDProjekt Red
>
>I know it.
>
>1. Some Polish guy at rpgcodex told that one of cofounders of CDProjekt
>made his initial fortune by selling pirated games in 90s.
>I don't have the link (though if someone really cares he can search the site
>for the name and info). I have no reason not to believe that guy.
>
>2. Now this CDProjekt again sell the games as it seems legally.
>Well, maybe de jure it IS legally but morally it is wrong from all sides.
>With time most old games became de facto abandonware, public domain.
>Peoples downloaded games, found solutions, built utilties to play old games
>on "modern systems". Obscure owners did not care. Everybody was happy.

There's no such thing as abandonware legally and lots of games were
posted on abandonware sites whose owners most certainly did care and
sent cease and desist letters as soon as they found out.
The abandonware sites then take those games down.

It's not like abandonware sites actually tried to contact the owners of
the IP and ask if they could post them, they just went ahead and did it.
They knew damn well that if they did contact the owners the owners would
say no and they counted on the owners never finding out.

>Now appears a shady company that began to sell the games using community's
>solutions, efforts. Wow! God blessed us! Really?

You call them shady but you like abandonware sites which are the very
definition of shady.  Seems like you have a moral compass that's
spinning freely.

>Consider: there was a landlord who had an orchard. Later he moved to some other
>place. Local folks began to visit the orchard, they even built ladders
>to reach tall trees. Landlord did not care, he just did not want to sell
>the land. Heck with the orchard. Then out of nothing appears a sleazeball,
>what call the owner, and tells he can make money of the orchard.
>Owner answers whatever. Now sleazeball takes a seat in orchard and
>tells everybody you should pay me. And me, being so kind person, permit you
>to use those ladders for free. (One of ladders has name - DosBox ;)

Except I'm pretty sure GOG has to pay the owners of the IP to get the
rights to distribute.

Which is the equivalent of the Landlord RENTING the land the orchard is
on to a tenant and that tenant can now charge people for the fruit that
they were previously STEALING, since it's his land and orchard now since
he's PAYING FOR IT.

It's not like the landlord put up signs saying "Free Fruit, take what
you want" and now the tenant is charging for it.
He just wasn't having people arrested for stealing it before and now
he's sold it to someone else who can do what he likes with it.

That's the difference between stuff that's made available for free and
stuff that's being stolen but the owner can't be bothered taking action
about.  You can bet if they were chopping down the trees for firewood he
would have cared since unlike fruit, that doesn't grow back soon and
would have devalued his property.

Freeware is free and if GOG was trying to sell it, you'd have a valid
complaint, kind of, since presumably GOG provides some support. 
Abandonware is owned property that abandonware sites are making
available for THEFT (legally speaking) - GOG buying that property from
the owners and selling it cheaply is a service, not a sleazeball move.

GOG just means you can have a copy of that old game _legally_ now, not
just steal it off the internet and face charges if you ever got caught
with it.

There's no such thing as abandonware, there's freeware and owned
software - if the owners really don't care about the IP, they make it
freeware.

Xocyll

On Mon, 08 Jul 2013 04:17:32 +0400, "Andrew Rybenkov"
<arybenkov@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 10:34:59 +0400, Rin Stowleigh <rstowleigh@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> If there was really a problem in an .exe of a game that cannot be
>> overcome by relatively simple configuration changes, you most likely
>> won't see that game ever appear on GOG, Steam etc.
>
>We will see whatever that mighty GOG will do with original Fallout.
>The game conflicts with desktop windows manager of Windows. In XP,Vista/W7
>you can turn it off in exe's compatibility options ("desktop composition").
>W8 does not let to turn DWM off anymore.
>
>Some guy published a way to unload DWM (and Explorer along with it).
>So theoretically it is possible to run Fallout on W8, but it's tricky.

Fallout (from GOG) runs fine on my Windows 8 machine. So I don't know
why you think there would be a problem. They've been selling it for a
while.

On Mon, 08 Jul 2013 22:36:18 +0400, shawn <nanoflower@gnotmail.com> wrote:

> Fallout (from GOG) runs fine on my Windows 8 machine. So I don't know
> why you think there would be a problem. They've been selling it for a
> while.

Well I tried original Fallout on Win8 preview on VirtualBox and experienced
exactly same artifacts as on Vista/W7 when you don't disable desktop
composition (DWM).

-- 
Andrew Rybenkov

On Mon, 08 Jul 2013 04:08:31 +0400, "Andrew Rybenkov"
<arybenkov@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 02:01:50 +0400, John Lewis <john.dsl@frontier.com> wrote:
>
>> Do you have some grudge against GOG ??
>
>I do. Exactly because
>
>> You may not know, but GOG.com is an offshoot of CDProjekt Red
>
>I know it.
>
>1. Some Polish guy at rpgcodex told that one of cofounders of CDProjekt
>made his initial fortune by selling pirated games in 90s.
>I don't have the link (though if someone really cares he can search the site
>for the name and info). I have no reason not to believe that guy.
>
>2. Now this CDProjekt again sell the games as it seems legally.
>Well, maybe de jure it IS legally but morally it is wrong from all sides.
>With time most old games became de facto abandonware, public domain.
>Peoples downloaded games, found solutions, built utilties to play old games
>on "modern systems". Obscure owners did not care. Everybody was happy.
>
>Now appears a shady company that began to sell the games using community's
>solutions, efforts. Wow! God blessed us! Really?
>
>Consider: there was a landlord who had an orchard. Later he moved to some other
>place. Local folks began to visit the orchard, they even built ladders
>to reach tall trees. Landlord did not care, he just did not want to sell
>the land. Heck with the orchard. Then out of nothing appears a sleazeball,
>what call the owner, and tells he can make money of the orchard.
>Owner answers whatever. Now sleazeball takes a seat in orchard and
>tells everybody you should pay me. And me, being so kind person, permit you
>to use those ladders for free. (One of ladders has name - DosBox ;)
>
>That is the lump on my shoulder.
>

Must be very awkward and painful. Made an appointment for the surgery
yet?

John Lewis

>-- 
>Andrew Rybenkov

On Sun, 07 Jul 2013 06:20:48 -0400, Xocyll <Xocyll@kingston.net>
wrote:

>Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com> looked up from reading the entrails of the
>porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:
>
>>On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 13:44:31 -0400, Xocyll <Xocyll@kingston.net>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>What video card type do you have  nVidia or ATi?
>>
>>Nvidia. Though I don't think the issue is video card related. Probably
>>has more to do with codecs then anything. I never tried too hard to
>>fix it. I've seen the videos enough times already and I could see them
>>as often as I wished to on youtube anyway.
>>
>>>I've never disabled cores for any game.
>>
>>Consider yourself lucky. I never had to until System Shock 2 came
>>along. You can turn off the extra cores but there is a patch that does
>>it for you automatically. I think Thief has one as well. I needed this
>>patch or the game would just keep locking up.

The game executable can be forced to run on only one CPU core by using
"imagecfg.exe".to fix the Affinity.  However, if the exec embeds
copy-protection code, the resultant image is highly likely not to
fuction correctly.

>Ah, maybe things work for me since my cores tend to be in use all the
>time running BOINC and maybe SS2 isn't getting affected by them due to
>that or something.
>
>I have to shut down BOINC for Skyrim and/or for video editing of large
>textures since it slows things down considerably, but I usually leave it
>running - certainly for older games it has almost no effect on gameplay.
>

Try running the original BF1942 ( with any or all official patches )
on your multicore machine. See if you can make it run more than 10
minutes.

John Lewis

>Xocyll

john.dsl@frontier.com (John Lewis) looked up from reading the entrails
of the porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:

>On Sun, 07 Jul 2013 06:20:48 -0400, Xocyll <Xocyll@kingston.net>
>wrote:
>
>>Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com> looked up from reading the entrails of the
>>porn spammer to utter  "The Augury is good, the signs say:
>>
>>>On Sat, 06 Jul 2013 13:44:31 -0400, Xocyll <Xocyll@kingston.net>
>>>wrote:
>>>
>>>>What video card type do you have  nVidia or ATi?
>>>
>>>Nvidia. Though I don't think the issue is video card related. Probably
>>>has more to do with codecs then anything. I never tried too hard to
>>>fix it. I've seen the videos enough times already and I could see them
>>>as often as I wished to on youtube anyway.
>>>
>>>>I've never disabled cores for any game.
>>>
>>>Consider yourself lucky. I never had to until System Shock 2 came
>>>along. You can turn off the extra cores but there is a patch that does
>>>it for you automatically. I think Thief has one as well. I needed this
>>>patch or the game would just keep locking up.
>
>The game executable can be forced to run on only one CPU core by using
>"imagecfg.exe".to fix the Affinity.  However, if the exec embeds
>copy-protection code, the resultant image is highly likely not to
>fuction correctly.
>
>>Ah, maybe things work for me since my cores tend to be in use all the
>>time running BOINC and maybe SS2 isn't getting affected by them due to
>>that or something.
>>
>>I have to shut down BOINC for Skyrim and/or for video editing of large
>>textures since it slows things down considerably, but I usually leave it
>>running - certainly for older games it has almost no effect on gameplay.
>>
>
>Try running the original BF1942 ( with any or all official patches )
>on your multicore machine. See if you can make it run more than 10
>minutes.

That would be difficult since I don't own that game.

Xocyll